After urging the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to take a stance on the use of carbon monoxide (CO) at the annual UCI Women’s WorldTour and WorldTour Seminar in November, the UCI took further action by officially calling for a ban on its use.
UCI President David Lappartient shared the announcement on social media following his participation in WADA’s Foundation Board meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
“On behalf of @UCI_cycling, I formally requested WADA in writing at the end of November, following the Annual UCI Women’s WorldTour and UCI WorldTour, to ban the use of carbon monoxide in the context of professional cycling,” Lappartient stated on X (formerly Twitter).
The use of carbon monoxide (CO) was first revealed during the Tour de France when it was discovered that some teams were using it to enhance altitude training. Initially uncovered by Escape Collective, teams like Visma-Lease a Bike, UAE Team Emirates, and Israel-Premier Tech were found to be using CO rebreathers to measure and so optimise their riders’ altitude training.
Riders Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard also confirmed they were aware of and had at least partially used the rebreathing equipment.
After initially stating that they had no plan to call for a ban on CO rebreathers, the Movement for Credible Cycling (MPCC) strongly advised against the technique in October and suggested it should eventually be banned.
Detalo Health, the company behind the rebreathers used by multiple WorldTour teams, told cyclingnews that MPCC needed to be more specific in what it is calling to be banned.
“The use of carbon monoxide as a medical diagnostic tool is, of course, an entirely different thing where the intent is not to increase performance, but as a diagnostic tool. And that should, of course, not be forbidden, or cannot be forbidden. So there needs to be a clear distinct treatment between the two,” Carsten Lundby, CEO of Detalo Health and a professor at the University of Southern Denmark said.
At the annual UCI Seminar in Nice, France, participants were also brought up to date on the current knowledge of the effects on performance of repeated carbon monoxide (CO) inhalation. The UCI requested riders and teams not to use “repeated inhalation” of the deadly gas.
